Washington Is Making the Same Blunder Regarding Taiwan That It Did in Ukraine

https://original.antiwar.com/ted_galen_carpenter/2022/08/01/washington-is-making-the-same-blunder-regarding-taiwan-that-it-did-in-ukraine/—

y Ted Galen Carpenter Posted onAugust 02, 2022

Tensions between the United States and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) are rising sharply over the Taiwan issue. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s stated intention to include a stop in Taipei to meet with Taiwanese officials during her forthcoming trip to East Asia is the latest source of trouble. Pelosi apparently escalated that provocation further by inviting other prominent members of Congress to join her in that stop. Her actions have caused even the staunchly pro-Taiwan Biden administration to quietly press her to change her plans. Conversely, congressional hawks are urging Pelosi not to back down.

The reason for the administration’s caution are readily apparent. Beijing has reacted with unusually intense anger to the prospective visit…………………………

For 4 decades after Washington shifted diplomatic relations from Taipei to Beijing in 1979 and passed the Taiwan Relations Act to govern reduced, informal relations with Taiwan, US administrations were careful to limit visits to the island to low-level officials.

That restraint diminished dramatically during Donald Trump’s presidency, when Congress authorized and the administration approved meetings by National Security Advisor John Bolton and other Cabinet-level officials with their Taiwanese counterparts. Those trips were part of a new policy of much stronger US diplomatic and military support for Taiwan – a course of action that the Biden administration has continued, despite insisting that the United States still adheres to a “one-China” policy.

………. The Biden administration needs to take the PRC’s warnings more seriously. In many ways, Washington’s determination to press ahead with greater support for Taiwan as part of an overall containment policy directed against China is reminiscent of the blunders US officials made with respect to NATO expansion, especially the campaign to incorporate Ukraine, and Washington’s tone-deaf response to Moscow’s escalating complaints.

Biden administration policymakers dismissed the Kremlin’s repeated warnings that trying to make Ukraine a NATO military asset would cross a red line with respect to Russia’s security interests. They discovered belatedly that Russian President Vladimir Putin was not about to cower and accept US diktats simply because the United States insisted that Ukraine had a “right” to join NATO. Nor did he accept Washington’s accelerating campaign to make Ukraine a de facto US military and intelligence ally perched on Russia’s border.

The outcome of Washington’s approach has been horrifyingly bloody and tragic for the people of Ukraine. Even more worrisome, the administration’s policies have led to an extremely dangerous confrontation between NATO and a nuclear-armed Russia, with the United States and NATO cynically using Ukraine as a pawn in a proxy war against Moscow.

Washington risks making a comparable blunder in its dealings with China. The administration must implement a quiet retreat regarding its growing political and military ties to Taipei and adopt a less confrontational approach to Beijing. Moreover, that change needs to go well beyond merely discouraging Pelosi’s provocative visit to Taipei. It has become increasingly obvious to PRC leaders that the United States is pursuing a full-blown anti-China containment policy, with Taiwan as the point of the spear, in a desperate effort to preserve Washington’s fading strategic primacy in East Asia. It is highly unlikely that Beijing will passively accept such an intrusive US presence in China’s core security sphere over the long term. As the PRC’s economic and military power continues to grow, Beijing’s resistance to Washington’s hegemonic efforts will escalate.

US arrogance and inflexibility helped lead to the current tragedy in Ukraine. Policymakers blew through red warning light after red warning light from the Kremlin. A similar approach seems to be taking place in Washington’s relations with Beijing, and it threatens to produce a similar ugly outcome in East Asia over the Taiwan issue.

Ted Galen Carpenter, a senior fellow in defense and foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute, is the author of 13 books and more than 1,100 articles on international affairs. His latest book is Unreliable Watchdog: The News Media and U.S. Foreign Policy (forthcoming, September 2022).

August 2, 2022 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics international, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Russia’s very profitable nuclear industry – NO SANCTIONS on that!

The G-7 is even considering forming its own cartel to limit purchases of Russian energy forever. At this point, every political option has been exhausted. Every corner of the economy has been sanctioned except one.

As it turns out, this particular sector of the economy has been deemed too important to warrant any harm.

Biden and the leaders of the EU have all quietly omitted it from their laundry list of punishments. Rosatom,
Russia’s state nuclear energy company, has so far been completely ignored by these angry lawmakers. The company is still working though a $130 billion backlog of projects around the world.

Energy & Capital 1st Aug 2022

Only One Russian Industry Has Escaped Sanctions

August 2, 2022 Posted by Christina Macpherson | 2 WORLD, secrets,lies and civil liberties | Leave a comment

A French volunteer described how he witnessed the dramatizations in Bucha

https://newsunrolled.com/world/70561.html–By HAROLD, JULY 30, 2022

French volunteer Boke spoke about the killing of the Russian army and the staging in Bucha

MOSCOW, July 30 – RIA Novosti. Visiting Ukraine, French volunteer and writer, former soldier Adrian Boke told RIA Novosti that he had witnessed a preparation for a provocation in the Kiev suburb of Bucha.

In April, Boke visited Ukraine twice to deliver humanitarian aid, medical equipment and medicines. He visited both the Polish-Ukrainian border and Bucha and saw how Russian prisoners of war were tortured and killed, as well as how Ukrainian militants were involved in a gradual massacre of civilians.

“Speaking of murders and torture, I’m talking about the killing and torture of the Russian army. First of all, the officers were executed. I heard screams when the people of Azov asked who the officer was, man. <…> Worst of all, I didn’t see any human interaction, there was no emotion, because people were executed right before my eyes, people were injured, people were shot, they were shot in the limbs, in the head,” he said.

Therefore, according to him, he witnessed the torture and murder of Russian prisoners of war in a hangar north of Bucha. It was early April, meaning the Ukrainian army had regained control of the city for several days.

Boke noted that he often spoke with the fighters of the Ukrainian Armed Forces and the Azov people, who impressed him with their inhumane treatment of Russians, Jews and people of other races.

“I had to act a lot so as not to show my opinion and feelings, and above all not to agree with their opinion. The disagreement with Nazi ideologies, especially when they expressed their attitude towards Jews and people with dark skin, because they were very cruel statements, and first of all I speak of hatred of the Russians, because they <…> they call you “Russian dogs”. And for all these soldiers, the soldiers of the Azov battalion, the main task is to torture and kill “Russian dogs”, as they always tell me. As a former soldier, this surprised me. They did not even mention the liberation of their population, as everything showed that their main purpose was to torture and kill “Russian dogs”,” the volunteer recalls.

He also observed how a provocation was prepared in Bucha to accuse the Russian army of slaughtering civilians.

“I was in the passenger seat when we got to Bucha by car, and as we drove through the city, I saw human corpses on the streetside and also saw bodies right in front of my eyes. People were taken out of the trucks and laid them next to the bodies lying on the ground, creating a mass-death effect,” he said.

He added that there were journalists who immediately started filming as soon as a group of bodies were found nearby.

“One of the volunteers who was at this place the other day, I emphasize that I did not see him, but one of the volunteers told me this. He said that he saw how refrigerated trucks from other cities were made the day before. In Ukraine, they took people’s bodies down and lined up in rows. From this I understood that there were staging and extras. , ”explained the interlocutor of the agency.

He noted that both volunteers and local residents were under pressure – to avoid publicity, militants threatened them with imprisonment and reprisals.

“We distributed drugs, including narcotic drugs, painkillers containing morphine. We were told clearly: if you don’t share with us, you won’t go where you need to go. I clearly remember that we had to deliver these painkillers to us at the children’s hospital, and we were told that if we didn’t share, we wouldn’t get there. And when we’re not far from Bucha military guards accompanied us, they were “Azov”. They escorted us to one of the hangars and told us to prepare a separate box with drugs containing morphine so that we could continue.” Said.

In addition, volunteers were prohibited from taking photos and videos.

“We were warned that otherwise we would be imprisoned with ten years or more severe consequences. This ban was also applied to the local population. This pressure was exerted by the military, especially the Azov people. Europe today does not understand how it is. The powerful Ukrainian population is under pressure,” he said.

After he started talking about the crimes of Ukrainian militants, he admitted that he was threatened.

“From the beginning <…> I started getting threats against me. Moreover, my mailbox, located near my house, was hit by a Kalashnikov assault rifle,” he said.

He fears persecution by the French authorities.

“Of course I’m afraid of that, I’m afraid of something being made up against me to silence me or put me in jail,” Boke said.

In early April, photos and videos appeared in the Ukrainian media and social networks with the bodies of the dead lying on the streets allegedly shot in Bucha after the Russian army left the city. Kyiv authorities accused Russia of mass murder of civilians.

The Russian Ministry of Defense stated that this was another provocation, stressing that not a single resident of Bucha was harmed by the actions of the Russian army, while the city was under their control. The ministry also noted that all units completely left Bucha on March 30, the northbound exits were not blocked, but the Ukrainian troops opened fire on Bucha around the clock from artillery, tanks and multiple launch rocket systems.

Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov urged the international community to conduct an impartial investigation into the provocation in Bucha. He stressed that Russia categorically denies any accusation of involvement in the deaths of people in this city, and demands that international leaders not rush into sweeping accusations, but listen to their arguments.

Source: Ria

August 2, 2022 Posted by Christina Macpherson | secrets,lies and civil liberties, Ukraine | Leave a comment